The problem with ghost towns is that nobody lives in them. Duh, you say, but this makes finding them difficult. The roads aren't paved and the turns aren't marked.
I forgot to mention something about La Roca last night: there was live music, two acoustic guitars, a bass, and a drum machine. They played nice, pleasant, traditional-sounding mexican music, until just before I left. After more gringos came in and a few started dancing, they played La Bamba and the Macarena. I left quickly.
I left Nogales at around eight and very soon was bumping along a dirt road. This road took me into some mountains, which would have been pleasant had I been in a four wheel drive vehicle.
I visited the places where two ghost towns were supposed to be, but the buildings, if they still existed, were either on private, blocked property or were hidden down some unmarked side roads.
I spent almost two hours bouncing and shuddering across not quite thirty miles of rugged dirt.
I listened to Mexican radio during this time, and, while I couldn't understand just what he said, I did recognize several songs. The most impressive was a Spanish version of Sixteen Tons, a bit faster than Tennessee Ernie Ford's, with the vocals a male/female duet and an accordion the principle instrument. I know it was Sixteen Tons, not just a song with the same melody, because I heard a reference to "San Pedro" in the chorus.
When I hit a paved roadway I swore that I would not venture onto dirt again if it was at all avoidable. I didn't really need to for the rest of the day, since the road to Tombstone was fairly straight and blacktop.
Tombstone is not really unlike any other wild west tourist town, except its popularity seems to be waning. There were several visitors, but the streets, while blocked, didn't need to be, and most of the stores (except the bars) seemed empty and the staffs bored. This was the third day of Wyatt Earp Days, their second biggest weekend (after Helldorado at the end of the summer).
I had some prickly pear ice cream, and it was, as expected, a deep reddish pink. I also stopped into the Crystal Palace Saloon. At first I just ordered a beer, but I decided that, if I was going to drink in an Old West saloon, I had to do it right, so I ordered a shot of whiskey, too. Smooth. Yee-ha, pardner.
Lots of people in period costumes wandered about, and all of the storefronts had wild west themes. Many of the buildings are registered historic landmarks, and famous things did happen here, but none of the businesses are the way they were then. They have all be remodeled and they all have new fixtures. While Tombstone is based on a famous wild west town, it looks and feels like a fake one.
The one exception is the Birdcage Theater. It hasn't been cleaned (much) or remodeled or converted into a bar or gift shop. It has been preserved pretty much the way it was (except signs have been added to identify the things in it). Had I been able to find a ghost town, and had it not been looted over the years, then I'm sure it would have felt something like this.
The posters on the walls, the balconies (birdcages) where the women entertained their customers, the mirrors, the furniture, were all original.
From Tombstone I went north to the interstate, rather than take the dirt road east. I immediately saw three huge billboards for The Thing? and saw several more before I covered the ten miles to that exit.
The Thing? is part of a huge truck stop/gas station/fast food/souvenir stand complex beside the highway. Admission to the attraction itself is 75 cents.
Along the short route through three buildings are antique cars, wooden statues, old guns, and many other collectables (at least collectable by these people). Every spare horizontal space of the display areas is covered with pieces of driftwood and root lightly carved and painted to look like animals.
All of this is well worth the price of admission. The Thing? itself, which, I was told before I went in, dates to 2000 BC, was another matter entirely. I'd like to tell you what The Thing? is, but I can't.
I'm not sure when I made the decision, but I foolishly decided that I'd try to make Carlsbad Caverns before sunset to watch the bats. Around sunset hundreds of thousands of bats swarm out of the cave for their nightly hunting.
Maybe I could have made it if I hadn't wasted two hours looking for ghost towns, or if I hadn't stuck to the speed limit, or if I hadn't had that prickly pear ice cream in Tombstone. It doesn't matter, really.
While zooming across New Mexico I passed three more truck stop/etc places run by the same company that owns The Thing?:The Continental Divide, Trails West, and Old West; another that may have been, Aken Flats; and a Stuckey's that wanted to be like that. I also passed and stopped at a Stuckey's just before The Thing?
I crossed the real Continental Divide in New Mexico at a measly 4585 feet. The desert was fairly flat here, but there were mountains in the distance in every direction that looked like giant pyramids.
Twice during the drive I saw a black bird fly just over my car chasing a yellow butterfly with black trim.
Looking at the map it seemed that my best route to Carlsbad Caverns was through Texas. I crossed the Rio Grande at Las Cruces and dipped south into Texas and El Paso. I drove through El Paso, but passed on stopping. (That was a very subtle joke.)
After a brief unintentional loop through the El Paso airport and passing Lee Trevino Boulevard I was cruising at 70 (the speed limit) across the desert. The sun was getting low and I was still two hours from Carlsbad, so I knew I wouldn't make it.
East of El Paso I was stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint. The officer asked if I was a U.S. citizen. When I said I was, he told me to drive carefully.
I zipped through Salt Flat, Texas, which looked oddly familiar.
At dusk I unintentionally visited another national park, the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Though after sunset, the sky was still fairly light, so the mountains stood out in contrast quite nicely.
I arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park at about nine, an hour too late to see the bats. I drove to the visitor center, about fifteen minutes from the entrance, to see if there was a sign telling when they expected them back. There wasn't a sign, but I did see two rangers sitting in a truck (probably watching to see what I would do), so I stopped and asked them. They weren't sure, but they thought it was around five o'clock.
The sky was clear. I stopped on the way back to the entrance just to look at the stars. There were billions of them!
Just outside the entrance there was a Best Western resort, a private town, really, where all the stores, the gas station, the restaurants, and the two motels are all owned the same company. I could have driven to Carlsbad and saved a good chunk of money on the room, but I decided to stay here so I could get out back to the park early and still get a little sleep.
I asked for a 4:45 wake up call and went to bed.
I am writing this the next morning, after getting up and going to see the bats, but that is a story for tomorrow.